Gnomic statements, maxims, apothegms, are the aged distillation of a society’s collective wisdom.
To read collections like the Old Testament’s Book of Proverbs, some of this old wisdom sticks:
How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, And thy want as an armed man. (Ch 6 v 9-11)
Some are profoundly melancholy:
Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful; and the end of that mirth is heaviness. (Ch 14v 13)
Other nuggets are wildly of their own time, like corporal punishment being lauded as a cardinal virtue:
He that spareth his rod hateth his son, (Ch 13 v 24)
and like the condemnation of non-standardised units of measurement:
Divers weights are an abomination unto the Lord (Ch 20 v23)
Proverbs also, in chapter 8, gives voice to Wisdom, a feminised entity that may be an echo of an earlier deity within a polytheistic pantheon in the pre-Abrahamic near East, possibly even the consort of Jehovah. Otherwise, much, if not all, of the book seems driven by brazen misogyny.
Judging by the texts that survive from the period, Christianised Anglo-Saxon culture appears more comfortable with the Old Testament. There is a marked devotion to military valour and to the person of the king, the ring-giver and dispenser of treasure. Two texts of gnomic poetry survive, referred to as Maxims I and II, whose style suggests composition around 7th or 8th century, and that keen monks had interspersed some Christian content within the established pagan worldview, just like Beowulf, possibly first written down around this time. There is a simplicity and innocence to the poems which may appear banal to the modern reader. Maxims II, contained in the Cotton collection in the British Library, has a steady metre and consistent alliteration of three stressed syllables in couple of half lines, which only breaks at the end of the poem. As with all Old English verse, we should probably imagine it recited to the accompaniment of a harp, delivering soothing platitudes, an ideal way to pass an evening after a hard day in the field or battlefield.
The first line harks back to the Anglo-Saxon’s own mysterious past and ‘cities’ (ceastra) left behind by the Romans. The fact that they had built with stone and not with wood was clearly a source of fascination, the buildings enduring through time were so impressive that they were referred to as the work of giants (enta), just like the truths subsequently recited in the rest of the verse. Articles appear rarely in Old English texts, especially the indefinite article, and the effect is to add to the eternal truthiness of the assertions, each of which contains the verbs biþ (‘is’) or sceal (‘shall be’). Everything just is, or simply must be, so. It is one of the challenges for translation, but to omit any modern English articles in a translation would make the text sound rather infantile. The order seems random, there are clusters of ideas, but the juxtaposition of natural phenomena and human experience (e.g. Grief is clinging. The clouds move slowly.) was surely deliberate. What is refreshing here, compared to the hectoring tone Book of Proverbs, is the sense of moral doubt and contingency. Yes, the truth is definitely out there, but it is elusive, deceptive… tricky (‘Soð bið swicolost‘). Even if we cannot lay hold of it, we have to keep looking.
My translation of Maxims II below has relied heavily on the annotations of Mitchell and Robinson.
The king shall rule the kingdom. The cities on this earth,
Built by giants, are seen from afar,
Wondrously wrought from stone. Wind on the air is swiftest,
Thunder at times is loudest. The power of Christ is mighty.
Fate is strongest. Winter is coldest,
Spring frostiest (it is cold the longest)
Summer the sunniest, (the sky is hottest)
Autumn the most glorious, it brings to men
The yearly fruits which God gives to them.
Truth is trickiest treasure is dearest,
Gold is for every man, and the old man wisest
Old and wise through bygone years, the many he has lived.
Grief is clinging. The clouds move slowly.
Youth shall encourage good companions
To battle and to generosity.
Strength shall be to the nobleman; the sword shall with the helmet
Await battle. The hawk shall dwell
Wild on the cliff; the wolf in the groves,
The solitary eagle; the boar shall in the forest
By the strength of his tusks. The good man shall in his homeland
Perform glorious deeds. The spear in the hand shall be a
A javelin painted gold. A gem shall in the ring
Sit deep and wide. The sea shall on the waves
Mix with the ocean current. The mast shall be on the ship
The sail-yard, hanging. The sword shall rest in the lap,
A lordly iron. The dragon shall dwell in the cave,
Cunning, proud with its treasure. The fish shall in the water
Its offspring bear. The king in his hall shall
Distribute rings. The bear on the heath,
Shall be old and terrible. The river shall run downhill
Sea-grey flowing. An army shall be assembled,
A band of warriors set on glory. Truth shall be to the nobleman,
Wisdom to the man. Trees shall be on earth
With blossoms a-bloom. A hill shall be on earth
Towering green. God shall be in heaven
The judge of actions. The door shall be to a hall,
The building’s spacious mouth. The boss set fast on the sword,
Shall be the finger’s fast protection. Up in the air
The bird shall wing its flight. A salmon shall in the pool
Shoot along with the trout. Rain, in the heavens
With wind mingled, shall come into this world.
A thief shall go in the shadowy weather. A giant shall dwell in the fens
Solitary in the country. A lady shall by her secret craft,
A woman to seek her friend, if she desires not the people to see her
Bought off by some man with rings. The sea shall well with salt,
The ocean currents, tide and atmosphere,
Shall whirl around every land. Life shall on earth
Spawn and teem. A star shall shine
Bright in the heavens, as the Lord decreed.
God shall against evil; youth shall against age;
Life shall against death; light shall against darkness,
Army against army, an enemy against its opposite,
Hated against hated, contending for land,
Accusing each other of crime. Ever shall a wise man think
On the struggles of this world, the felon shall hang,
To compensate fairly the crimes he has committed
Against humankind. The Lord alone knows
Where the soul must turn in the hereafter
And all those ghosts after the day of death
Departing, that before God, await judgement
In the Father’s bosom. The future is
Dark and secret; the Lord alone knows,
The redeeming Father. No one comes again
Here under the rooves, that truthfully
May tell the people how God’s creation might be where,
In the dwellings of his victorious people, he himself lives.
ofthewedge 
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